Ion Copoeru

The Husserlian concept of intersubjectivity has been criticized for the fact that it belongs exclusively to a philosophy of representation and to a solipsistic consciousness. In this conceptual framework, the other (ego) appears to be constituted by a singular ego through the synthesis of the series of its appearances (perceptive or imaginative representations) and by extrapolation (transposition) of its own “sphere of originality”. For this theory of constitution seemed to be essentially related to the concept of objective representation that post-Husserlian phenomenologists have criticized and eventually replaced with another, in which affectivity is supposed to open the way to otherness, as we can see in Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Michel Henry or Jacques Derrida. Our hypothesis is that the difficulty does not regard the theory of constitution, but the fact that the other and the community that he forms with me and with many others are thought only in terms of representation. Even those who discharged the “abstract” objective representation of Husserl’s function and replaced it with “affectivity” were not finally able to overpass the representational framework, because the other has always been for me (and vice-versa, I have been for him) only a “picture” (no matter whether representative or “affective”), something which simply “stands” before my eyes. But this is certainly a reductive way of understanding the relation between the I and the other. If we focus our attention on the phenomenon of community and not on some interpretations or simplifications of it, we realize that it is not sufficient that objective representation or affectivity or any other faculty constitute or disclose the other for the I (even if that is a necessary starting point). As a multilayered concept, “intersubjectivity”, in Husserl’s sense, is a system of transitions from mere appearance to transcendence, from passivity to activity, from cognitive and affective representation to volition and action. As soon as we see the relation between the I and the other as active, as an influence or intrusion of one consciousness in another, as an intention to “move” the other, to determine him to assume or to begin an action (a real one, effected in real life), the concept of intersubjectivity changes drastically, even though the “representation” of the other before the I and of the I in the eyes of the other remains a necessary interface. Accordingly, constitutive phenomenology has to take into consideration volition, action and communication not simply as extensions of the constitution of the thing. A reform of the theory of constitution, or rather its enlargement, to encompass this new type of “objectivity” (praxis) which would thus offer an adequate conceptual framework is strongly recommended.

In spite of some remarkable contributions, Husserl’s project of phenomenology as universal phenomenology still remains incomplete, and therefore may be questionable both in its fundamental idea – that that phenomenology should encompass all the ontologies and all the sciences in general in a final foundation - and in its accomplishments. In order to complete this task, I believe that the methodological orientation of phenomenology should be stressed, and that the distinctions operating in this second-order critique must be prolonged till their final consequences. One of the aims of this paper is a methodology guided by the theory of constitution and a more precise correlation between the levels of constitution and the levels of phenomenology. Therefore I propose a two-steps post-preliminary methodological approach, which will clarify the status of phe¬nomenology and release its genuine innovating forces. The first step is that of a sharp distinction, perhaps even a separation, between the level of the phenomenological analyses and the level of the philosophical auto-interpretation of these analyses. This distinction will allow us to discuss the various connections between these two levels in Husserlian phenomenology and to examine the way in which some specific phenomenol¬ogical analyses require a specific philosophical superstructure. The second step is the elaboration of a typology of phenomenological analyses. The chart of the systematic lines of methodological issues, elaborated by A. Steinbock, will be the starting point of a discussion, which will be oriented to the clarification of the role that the so-called empirical sciences played in the general theory of constitution. The final conclusive part of our paper contains some reflections about the viability of the Husserlian project of phenomenology as a universal philosophy.

The unitary description both of the thing and of the other allowed to the Husserlian phenomenology to overcome the classical distinction between representation and will and to treat the volition and action as specific objects. In the following paper we shall investigate the basic concepts of a phenomenology of will and action comparing it with Kant's position in this respect. Our research will focus on the phenomenological description of the passage from the inchoative moment of the action to the action to the ethical action and on the manner in which normativity arises in the milieu of the interaction. Korsgaard's concept of reflective endorsement will be our main reference in this field.

In an different manner than the classical works of Sokolowski, Tugendhat and Schuhmann, who treated the Husserlian problematic of constitution as reality – subjectivity relation, this study tries to explain that relation in a pure immanent and formal way. The constitution of the object as such presupposes a system of constitution, which, as a part of the system of "transcendental" phenomenology, takes explicitly into account the legality or typicality of the processes and requires their global articulation. Thus, in the first section, the study clarifies the relation between "analytics" and "transcendental" in the framework of the originary constitution. In the second section, through a comparative analysis of the "field" and "flux", the most elementary structures of connectivity are exposed. Finally, a research upon the formal characters of a "series" in Husserl’s doctrine of intentional modifications will be brought into discussion in order to clarify the role of the infinity in the Husserlian theory of constitution.